Forever
by MiniJen
Summary: SS Manga AU; based on a post from tumblr user sagesins. Hylia's hero had lost, but instead of putting him out of his misery, the Demon King had other plans. In order to stop the cycle of the Spirit of the Hero from ever starting, the Demon King imprisons the first hero, keeping him trapped in time's unmoving grip and torturing him to his breaking point. Oneshot, Link/Hylia kinda


**_AN-What? MiniJen posts a oneshot for the first time in forever!? Huh? Especially when she SHOULD be working on Hyrule Warriors... Uh oh... :P Well, who can blame me? After all, I got a huge burst of inspiration when I saw this beautifulness on Tumblr: post/101243215421/o-6-i-had-this-weird-idea-of-the-first  
>So yeah, this art isn't mine, but rather its the incredible work of the very talented sagesins ( ) who i got permission to write this piece from! Now, mind you, I'll just throw it out right now that there are trigger warnings depression, torture, blood, violence and all that follow ahead, hence the T rating! And, just for ur info, this is an AU of the Skyward Sword prequel manga, in which Demise imprisons the first hero instead of just killing him, so that the Spirit of the Hero won't be eternally reborn and the cycle of incarnation never starts in the fist place! So yeah, that's basically it! Now enjoy!<em>**

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><p><em>Forever<em>

Forever was such a long time.

The light of a dying twilight barely managed to come in through the opening of the temple's broken roof, showering the unmoving hero's restrained form with dull light. It wasn't often that the sun would peek through the otherwise constantly black clouds that hovered over the fallen Land of Hylia, but even the brief moments of warmth that it gave did little comfort Link. Nothing could anymore. All sense of relief and comfort had been stripped away from him long ago, as had his honor, his strength, and even his freedom.

He had fallen to the blood-soaked hands of the Demon King, but instead of simply ending the wounded hero's life with dignity, the monster had shown no such mercy. Demise knew that the Spirit of the Hero that dwelled within him would be reborn again if he were just allow him to die. He wanted to stop the cycle of reincarnation before it even again, ensuring that his wicked reign over the surface would forever go uncontested. He captured Link before he could aid the goddess enacting their plan of secreting the humans and the golden power away to the safety of the sky. And with the humans all quickly being massacred by the demonic hordes, their wicked master was free to take the Triforce and conquer the land with ease.

In one fell swoop, Demise had used its great power to slaughter every last human, save for the hero, who was forced to watch the senseless genocide firsthand. However, he could do nothing to stop it; his body was too weak and broken to fight, even if he had not been bound tightly by the Demon King's strong magic. Unable to look away, Link watched as the beauty of the land he loved was wiped away by darkness and destruction. He watched as his friends and kinsmen were slowly and torturously killed, crying out for a hero who could not save them all the while. And upon seeing everything he cared for and believed in being burnt right before his very eyes, his soul cried out in agony, internally begging for death that would not come, even though he refused to indulge the Demon King by letting him know how his heart had been torn asunder.

But of course, Demise did not stop there. He decided to give the hero an eternal prison, a place where he would never be able to escape from. The Temple of Hylia seemed like a fitting place to serve such a purpose; after all, it was built in homage for the goddess whom, as the Demon King had coldly told Link, would certainly not come to his aid now that the Triforce and the humans had been conquered. And yet, even as the hero was tightly bound by chains once more, he refused to believe that Hylia would give up on him and on her beloved land. Certainly, she had enough power to stop Demise and his wicked plans, and return life and peace to the surface once more, right?

As much as the Demon King often mocked the hero during the first few days, brutally torturing him almost to the point of death, Link would not give his malevolent captor the satisfaction that his cruel words were actually starting to get to him. As hours passed on into days, a newfound fear awakened within the hero that he might never see freedom again, something that he had never had to deal with before. Even when he had been wrongly imprisoned by his fellow knights for four years, he had always held onto a shred of hope that he would see the fresh light of day again before he tasted death, and indeed, he had. And yet, he had only been free for but a few days before he fell to the clutches of the Demon King, before he was reduced to nothing more than a worthless prisoner once again.

But even still, Link held onto the slim ray of hope that someone would come, be it Hylia or someone else entirely, even if there were few souls left who could save him now. His days were long, lonely, and often full of immense pain. Demise had been rumored to be cruel, but none could truly know the extent of his wickedness unless they experienced it for themselves. Within the first day or so of his captivity, the Demon King had his servants force Link to his knees by nearly breaking his legs, before tightening the magic-infused chains around his wrists to the point that they nearly cut off his circulation. And then, Demise came in himself, brutally beating the hero with the back end of his dark blade until he began to violently cough up blood thanks to his shattered ribcage and fractured spine. The other end of the sword had torn through his flesh in a variety of different ways; his chest had been ripped open, his abdomen torn roughly across, both his legs stabbed straight through. And yet, no matter what the Demon King did to him, Link could find no relief in death; when it seemed as though he was starting to fade from either blood loss of his immense internal injuries, his captor's magic would revive him so he could endure more of it. After all, Demise didn't only want to keep the hero around for practical reasons; he was the evil lord's favorite trophy of his victory, as well as his favorite plaything.

And yet, as much pain as the Demon King put him through, Link remained as unbreakable and resilient as ever, knowing that any sign of weakness would make his agony worse. He kept his cries of agony reserved for only the most intense forms of pain, and he never once uttered a word of begging or pleading for mercy, mostly because he knew they would be futile. One day, early on in his captivity, Demise had attempted to make an offer with his prisoner, giving him the chance to serve him and his demonic forces and save himself from further anguish. But, without a moment's thought or hesitation, Link rejected such a treacherous offer, refusing to turn against the goddess who had believed in him. Because even though she had not come to his side yet, he still believed in her.

And in time, she did finally come. But it was on that day that everything changed for the worse.

She arrived to her temple in a flourish of light, the very sight of it filling the hero's weary soul with much needed relief. Her strong, harmonious voice held the slightest bit of grief for her fallen people as she faced Demise herself and demanded that he let her chosen hero go, her dark blue eyes shifting over to Link as she held back tears of pity upon seeing his bloodied condition. But the hero could only stare at her with both awe and hope, knowing that after what felt like weeks of nothing but cold captivity, she had finally come for him; she had come to deliver him to safety and freedom that he so desperately craved.

Wielding the blade of evil's bane that her hero had dropped in the battle, Hylia took up opposition against Demise, completely prepared to battle him to the death in order to win Link's freedom. But, upon hearing the goddess's noble vow, the Demon King merely laughed coldly, and held up his hand to reveal the mark of the claimed Triforce on the back of it. And then, in a booming voice, he called out to its immense power, wishing for something that neither Link nor Hylia could have been anticipating: the eternal eradication of the goddess herself.

The very moment this dark wish was made, a searing, unbearable pain coursed through Hylia's immortal body, causing her to drop the Master Sword and collapse to the ground with a scream of agony. Link watched with horror as his goddess writhed in anguish, clutching at her heart as her screams grew more intense and pained. And finally, as she collapsed to the ground, still letting out tearful cries, the hero could remain silent no longer. For the first time ever, he begged and pleaded to the Demon King, desperate to free Hylia from her undeserved suffering. Tears of heartbreak began to stain his own cheeks as he continued to watch her be tortured for his sake, but Demise simply laughed at them both, enjoying their equal pain and grief. Using the power of the Triforce to negate the sacred power of the Master Sword, he wrenched it from Hylia's fragile grip and strode over towards the hero, who dared not take his eyes away from the goddess still slowly dying only a few feet away from him, but he could do nothing to save her. And, since Link was restricted by both his former injuries and the chains wrapped around his arms, he could do nothing but let out an immeasurable cry of untold agony as Demise plunged the Master Sword, the very blade he had once wielded into battle heroically, into his back, completely piercing his heart and running it through until it came out through his chest and dug its sharp tip into the stone ground beneath him, locking him in place. And though such a fatal wound should have killed him instantly, the hero could not die as long as the Demon King's cruel power kept him alive. All Link could feel was pain as he nearly blacked out from the amount of blood that was pouring from his wound, and any amount of movement he made at all made the hole in his body even wider and more unbearable. Even in all her own immense agony, Hylia screamed in horror upon seeing what Demise had done to her beloved hero, but once more, the Demon King mocked them both heartlessly as he teleported away from the temple, leaving the goddess and the hero alone to say their last goodbyes.

With tears streaming down the pained goddess's face, she begged the broken hero for forgiveness for forcing him to endure such agony, for she knew that unlike her, his suffering would never end. She could tell from the glowing marks that surrounded the stone platform that Link was positioned on, marks that bore semblance to the Gate of Time, that Demise had cursed him, stopping the flow of time for him entirely and forbidding him from passing on into the next life. With soft, tearful words, the hero whispered consoling words to the dying Hylia, wishing that he had gotten the chance to hold her beautiful form in his arms once more before she met her cruel demise. And, before the goddess died entirely, they both managed to confirm their love for one another, a love that had died as quickly as it had begun.

Hylia faded from existence in a burst of particles of light, and as that light faded, so too did any shred of hope that Link had once had.

For the next several weeks, the hero could do little else but mourn the loss of his beloved goddess, completely ignoring the constant burst of pain that the sword plunged through his chest gave him. His pierced heart was broken beyond repair as he realized that with her death, so too was the death of the last ray of light that the world used to have. Now, there was only darkness, and so there would be darkness forevermore.

After Hylia's death, Demise took even more pleasure in torturing Link, forcing him to go through agony that no human should ever have to endure. Nearly every single one of his bones had been broken, and the Master Sword had been taken out of his hollowed chest several times only to be stabbed right back in, ripping its way into his heart until he was almost certain that it had been torn to shreds, both literally and figuratively. It didn't take long after the eradication of the goddess for the hero to start begging for mercy. With unending tears of misery, he would plead for the unending pain to stop, even when he wasn't being tortured. His cries of agony were like music to the perverse Demon King's ears, and they only made his anguish even more intense. Sometimes, the bouts of torture would go on for days on end; most of the time, Demise himself would inflict it upon Link out of sheer pleasure, but after a while, he began to allow his underlings to take swings at the vulnerable hero whenever they pleased. He was burnt, stabbed, cut, beaten, whipped, anything that the demonic hordes could think of to inflict pain upon their innocent prisoner, the sole living thing left within the now-dead Land of Hylia, a place that had once been so full of life and beauty.

The hero never once tried to escape or fight back once the sword was run through him; any move he made was unbearable, so why make things worse for himself. Why try at all? There was nothing left to salvage in the ruins of the world, not even his own life and freedom. The long days of torture soon became all his world consisted of, and the cold nights were spent in quiet, lonely solitude. Sometimes he would sob silently to himself over all he had lost, sending soft prayers to goddesses that he quickly started to lose faith in. He had nothing left; not his dignity, his honor, his land, his friends, his health, not even the love of the beautiful goddess who had looked upon him with such gentle kindness. Everything had been torn from him. Everything had been lost.

Days soon turned into weeks, weeks passed on into months, moths faded into years and years cascaded in decades. Trapped by the curse of the Demon King, Link remained frozen in time, unable to age or change even though he could tell that time was moving in the world around him. The temple of the goddess, a place that had once been so full of peace and beauty, was now nothing more than a dark, desolate prison to him, where cold water would mercilessly drench him whenever it rained, and where rats scattered about the filthy floor, none of them even bothering to approach the decrepit hero. Since Demise's curse kept him alive indefinitely, Link had not eaten or drank in so long; all he could taste anymore was his own blood, something that he often found himself coughing up after a prolonged spell of torture. Eventually, he stopped sobbing and begging for mercy that would not come, and in time, his voice faded altogether; after all, what was the point of speaking when on one would listen?

As the years passed by, Demise eventually grew tired of toying with the hero and he and his followers moved on from the temple, taking their dark campaign to the rest of the world. The torture finally ended, but Link felt no form of relief; he had already been scarred so much by all he had been through, emotionally and physically, that it was as though it had never stopped in the first place. In empty, cold solitude, the hero now spent his days, the sword ever piecing his chest and keeping his body pinned down. He could not leave; he wasn't strong enough to free himself from the sword's grip or the chains that bound him. He wasn't strong enough at all.

In time, the hero began to forget; the memories of his life before his imprisonment faded from his mind, and eventually, he could no longer even remember what the world outside the hollow temple walls was like. His pain had grown into a bitter, aching numbness so long as he remained completely still, something that he had gotten quite good at over the past several years. His appearance stayed youthful, even despite the fact that he was now gaunt and frail from his many wounds. However, every now and then, when he found himself actually able to drift off to sleep at night, his mind would take him away from it all, and he would find a semblance of freedom in a land that was filled with peace and beauty, things that he could hardly fathom upon seeing them. In these all too brief dreams, he was always joined by a lovely, kindhearted young woman with a gentle smile, her flaxen hair shining in the sunlight and her immaculate white dress flowing in the breeze. She would smile at him lovingly, give him a soft kiss on the lips, and sing to him in words that he could not understand, but felt comforted by nonetheless. He didn't remember who she was or what her importance to him was, but he felt relief in her presence all the same. And then, all too quickly, she would fade away and he would find himself back in the darkness of the stale, empty temple, alone and abandoned once more.

By the time the first full century of his imprisonment came to an end, he couldn't even remember his own name anymore. When five hundred years and came and went, he had stopped dreaming, stopped even thinking of anything but the present altogether. After all, anything that had happened before and anything that could possibly happen in the future did not matter now. Nothing did. Even as hundreds and hundreds of years passed by dully and quietly, his wounds never showed signs of healing and his pain never decreased. Every day was exactly the same and he had never expected anything else. He had accepted long ago that this was all there was, this was all there ever had been, and this was all there ever would be. Even though he could not remember why he was there or why this had happened to him, he knew that it was his lot in life to remain trapped in this deathly quiet temple, his heart pierced through with a sword bereft of the light it once held, time forbidden from passing for him. There was no death, there was no life. There was only darkness.

It had been the Demon King's intention to keep him there forever, to prevent the unbreakable Spirit of the Hero from being born eternally. But what even he did not know was that over the course of thousands of years of emptiness, hopelessness, loneliness, pain and grief, that once unbreakable spirit shattered all its own. And, at the very moment that the Spirit of the Hero was finally broken, some five thousand years after it was imprisoned in time's unmoving hold, that the goddesses finally granted the ruined hero the peace that he had craved for so long. As his spirit crumbled entirely from the crushing despair and anguish that it had been forced to eternally endure, the goddess of courage herself descended from on high and withdrew the blade of evil's bane from her chosen one's heart. With great sadness, Farore looked into the hero's placid face, his eyes shut in unconsciousness from the great strain that his spirit being broken had put upon him. And, as she used her power to make the chains that had grown rusted and corrosive around his wrists vanish, she took him gently into her arms and, whispering words of comfort and hope, she carried his weary, broken soul to the freedom of the afterlife, where his goddess stood waiting to, at long last, welcome him home.

And suddenly, forever did not seem so terribly long anymore.

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><p><strong>:,( Well, I just love making myself sad, don't I? But anyway, I hope you all enjoyed that, as heartbreaking at it was... Now if you'l excuse me, I'm off to write some fun action scenes of Hyrule Warriors, which will hopefully cheer me up from the depression that this had put me in! If you liked, then please feel free to REVIEW and don't forget to go give sagesins's other artwork a lookie! Until next time!<strong>


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